Category Archives: Blog

Security is one of the most important aspects of any content migration. Security considerations impact migration in a number of ways, summarised simply below;

Understand the security in the source.

Securing the content during migration.

Appropriately applying security in the destination.

This article is concerned with securing the content during migration.

In delivering content migrations we do 4 key things to ensure security;

We Understand

We Plan

We Design

We Implement

We Understand

We understand that different organisations, jurisdictions, and content will be subject to differing legislation, regulation, and policy considerations. For example;

HIPAA / HITECH

PCI

EU Model Clauses

General Data Protection Regulation

Australia Privacy Act

ISO

Data Residency

South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information (POPI) Act

We Plan

It is critical in all content migrations that data should be treated with respect. We work with our clients to agree an appropriate content migration security plan as part of any content migration.

Plans are normally specific to client, source, destination and the nature of the content.

We Design

We design our migration tooling with security at the forefront of considerations.

We design our client’s migration processes again with security at the forefront and reflective of the agreed content migration security plan.

We Implement

We implement security measures across our migration tooling and processes. These will be appropriate to each aspect of the migration, for example;

Extract

Transform

Load

Remote Access

Extract

Appropriately secure the extraction process. For example if the source is a cloud based system where https:// has been deemed appropriate for user access then this will likely be appropriate for the extract aspect of the content migration.

Transform

Appropriately secure the transformation process. This may be simple but important measures such as minimising or eliminating the amount of content which is written to any temporary location and ensuring it’s expedient removal.

Load

Appropriately secure the load process. When loading to SharePoint Online for example we communicate to SharePoint using the https protocol and encrypt library content using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

Remote Access

Appropriately secure remote access. If remote access to client systems is required then this will be secured in accordance to the agreed content migration security plan.

In Conclusion

A typical first step in many migration projects is to research, select and procure a migration tool.

Content Migration as a Service (CMaaS) changes this concept. CMaaS also delivers the outcome not just the means to achieve it.

Sometimes CMaaS is a better approach for your scenario.

We have put together some examples of how we find CMaaS has helped our clients which we hope will help you to make the correct choice for you scenario.

Delivery Accelerator

CMaaS typically accelerates migration delivery.

The team must understand the desired outcome so that the CMaaS partner can deliver. This moves decision making to the fore.

You will be working with a delivery partner who has delivered many migrations. Having an experienced partner brings speed, clarity and confidence to decision making. Migration projects can often be about difficult decisions that balance both advantages and disadvantages of a given approach so this can be a significant contribution.

Team Focus

Content migration is typically one part of a larger project.

Invariably the purpose of that overarching project will be to bring a significant improvement or efficiency to the organisation.

Arguably the project team wants to be focused on the creation and delivery of that future and the “one-time” content migration element can be a distraction.

CMaaS permits the team resources to focus whilst a partner delivers the “one-time” content migration element.

Align Perspectives

Different teams and personnel within your organisation will have different perspectives on any content migration project.

An experienced CMaaS partner will understand this landscape and work with your team to align this with the detail of the content migration.

To exemplify this we should consider that content migration is frequently not only concerned with moving content from A to B but also with ensuring that the content migration honours;

Use and Consumption, e.g.

Continued use and consumption post migration

Arrangements for use and consumption during migration

Governance, e.g.

Permissions

Security

Retention

Disposition

Compliance

Infrastructure, e.g.

Bandwidth

Storage

Responsibility for each of these areas is likely split between personnel. A good CMaaS partner will understand both this landscape and also drivers such as regulatory and legislative compliance.

Team Resources

A content migration project can place significant demand upon team resources.

CMaaS reduces this demand.

It is also the case that most content migration projects are a “one-time” deal. Without a migration partner it is likely your organisation will incur the additional learning curve costs of internal or contractor resources only for these skills to be redundant as soon as the project is delivered.

Small Content Migrations

The benefits of CMaaS becomes very acute for small migrations.

For a small migration the cost of the CMaaS engagement may well be similar to or less than the cost of the tooling. When this is set against the background of team resource costs and other factors a strong case is made, commercially, for CMaaS.

When we label a repository as legacy we should be careful to understand that this means legacy to your organisation. Put a different way a legacy repository may be supported by the manufacturer but your organisation has determined it no longer wants to maintain the system.

Consolidation is achieved by successful execution of one or more migration projects.

Successful consolidation would at least achieve these benefits.

1. Reduce Cost

Once all content has been migrated out of a legacy repository cost can be reduced:

Software manufacturer support and licences costs are eliminated.

Infrastructure (hardware, power) costs are eliminated.

Training costs for users are reduced.

Ownership costs such as internal IT costs are reduced.

2. Reduce Risk

With content migrated to a preferred platform risk is significant reduced:

Legacy platform risks such as failure, stability, security and data loss are circumvented.

Skills (expertise) risks are mitigated.

3. Increase Productivity

Content consolidation normally reflects a productively increase:

Single search – Ability to find all content in a single search.

Single knowledge set – The requirement to only learn and master a single electronic content management system.

Single administration point – Only a single system for which to set permissions and execute other administrative and governance activities.

A need for content migration will normally arise from an overarching project.

Typically such a project would be :

A migration project to a new EDRMS, WCM or Collaboration system such as SharePoint.

A consolidation project whereby you consolidate to a single EDRMS, WCM or Collaboration system such as SharePoint.

Such a project will have it’s own understood drivers and benefits case.

We believe it is important to recognise that this overarching project is different from the content migration itself as the overall project will address not just content but also people and processes.

The exception to this is an archive project in which the main driver is correctly retaining the content as opposed to actively or extensively working with it. In such a project the element of people and process is reduced and the content migration process comes to the fore.

Content Migration Process

To satisfy the requirements of a migration process a content migration process normally needs to be built or at very least configured.

The process could be simple or complex. In order to facilitate the later we use PowerShell.

The process will undoubtedly migrate content but may also:

Configure the destination

Deploy structure such as sites, libraries or folders.

Deploy meta data such as lookup lists

Set Permissions

Transform the content

Transform the meta data

The process will additionally include:

Reporting

Reconciliation

Tracking

Validation

In short the content migration process is tailored to the needs of the project and further ensures all content is correctly transferred and validated.

Content Migration Tooling

Content migration tooling avoids reinvention of the wheel.

Good migration tooling encapsulates all common functionality that your migration process will need so that it can be built more easily and cost effectively.

We continually develop our own migration tooling so that we can work with you to deliver a very effective Content Migration Process in minimal time and at minimal cost. We have connectors for most source repositories.

This article assumes that you are comfortable with the basic operation of the export connector but are looking at ways to improve, basically getting a more joined up capture system.

We are going to look at;

The Basic Experience

A Better Experience (For a lookup scenario)

Implementing that experience

Configuring the Export Connector

Writing a Lookup Function

Calling the Lookup Function

Fine Tuning

Ok so here goes.

Basic Experience

A lot of times the export connector is used in manual mode.

Every time a document is indexed the user sees the export connector (The panel underneath Trim Control Panel), clicks “Create Record”. They then get the Record Creation screen which they fill in using the mouse. If the names of your Kofax field and Trim fields align then they are defaulted (See Trim_Title in this example).

Better Experience

So a better experience is not to see the Export Connector at all. If the record can be created using just Kofax then manual indexing will be quicker and if you are using ICR / OCR / Recognition it can be potentially automated.

So we want something like below. We don’t really want to see that ugly record creation screen.

User just keys in the unique reference and the rest of the data should be pulled in from Records Manager, they can eyeball the image to make sure it matches, then the record should be automatically created.

Implementing

Ok so we know what we want but how to do.

Configuring the Export Connector

So to ensure that the export connector is working but not visible we set it to automatically invoke.

Writing a Lookup Function

So when the user keys in a unique reference we want to lookup information from Records Manager. So where is this going to come from? Well normally each record you scan is going into a folder and that folder will often carry all the meta data we need to visually check an image.

So our lookup is going to be to Records Manager which means a lookup function using the SDK.

This we can do using the .NET scripting built into Kofax.

.NET Scripting

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' This sub looks up the folder and gets the details from the dedicated folder in Trim

Private Sub Lookup()

'Connect tothe defaultdatabase on the Trim client

Dim db AsNewDatabase

db.Connect()

' Create field definition for the user defined fields that we will be working with

Microsoft are making changes to the page and web part model in SharePoint – the new SharePoint Framework.

To take advantage you are going to have to write or obtain web parts created in this way. Luckily the great and the good of the SharePoint Community have been quick to rise to the challenge.

You’ll find some links below. If you wish to build these projects you will need a development environment (See this article) and some background on working with SPFX web parts (See this article).

If you want us to build any project for you then you’ll need to drop an email with the url for your resources / CDN (maybe “https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/intranet/SiteAssets/spfx40/” for a test).

A taster of what is coming in 2017 for SharePoint

The short version? More things, prettier things, better things and a growing trend for Microsoft providing apps to solve the business problems people used to develop in SharePoint (StaffHub, Teams et al)

The longer version? Now what gets you excited might depend on what you are interested in or using SharePoint for, hopefully our heading below will draw you to the most relevant area.

Enjoy!

Pretty Things

Publishing Pages

So 2016 gave us the modern team site (O365). In 2017 the same is coming for publishing. You will be able to easily created beautiful responsive publishing sites.

These pages will use out of the box and custom web parts developed using the new SharePoint Framework.

Custom Themes

Office 365 custom themes will be updated to include more themes overall, the ability for a user to upload their own theme and an option to use Bing images as your theme.

Document Management & Compliance

Copy and move to SharePoint

Copy and move files between OneDrive and SharePoint in web experiences. In CY17, Microsoft add the ability to move an copy files between a greater range of locations.

Mobile Scanning for OneDrive for Business

Using the OneDrive mobile app seamlessly take a photo, convert it to a PDF, and store it in OneDrive for Business. This will come first to Android followed by iOS and Windows Phone.

Office 365 Groups preservation and deletion policy

Create and manage preservation and deletion policies that affect Office 365 Group mail and files in one step using the Security and Compliance Center

Scanning – Office Lens iOS feature updates

New capabilities with Office Lens for iOS. Multi scanning; scan multiple images in a row and save/send as a series. Rotate scanned images3D touch feature to change modes.

OneDrive for Business SharePoint Online Document Library Sync

The ability to sync SharePoint document libraries, including Office 365 groups, added to the Next Generation Sync Client (NGSC). NGSC will also sync OneDrive for Business Shared Folders.

Apps

Microsoft StaffHub

Ok so not strickly speaking SharePoint but interesting because it provides the sort of solution that many people have tried to create before in SharePoint.

Microsoft StaffHub is a new app coming to Office 365 that connects Deskless Workers to the information they need to do their job for the day. StaffHub is currently in preview – find more information at http://staffhub.ms.

Migration

FastTrack | Dropbox to OneDrive for Business Migration

FastTrack Center will offer file migration services from Dropbox to OneDrive for Business as a new benefit provided by the FastTrack Center. This migration service will be available to customers with 150+ seats of eligible Office 365 plans.

Propeller Heads

SharePoint Online – Webhooks on SharePoint Document Libraries

Unlock the Webhooks development scenario through the Microsoft Graph. These WebHooks set of APIs allow developers to get notified with changes from SharePoint lists and document libraries in a performant and reliable way.